Link up of Baldy and Harwood via Devil's Backbone in what is likely the last of the spring snow. Although there was a large crowd on Baldy, I had Harwood to myself and was the first person in 8 days to sign the register.

Drove down from the Bay Area for a conference in Palm Springs - after visiting the downtown LA library I drove up to Manker Flat and hiked up to the ski lodge and took the Devil's Backbone trail up to Baldy with a side visit to West Baldy and Harwood on a fine afternoon. Barely any snow to be found anywhere, and none on the trail. Trip report is HERE.

Using this route in the cold season is unusual, but due to the extremely dry winter it was possible to do almost the entire Register Ridge in hiking boots. The top had snow, as did the Harwood summit. Almost blown off by the strong winds.

The summit was very, very windy, but then so was Baldy, which is why Mark J and I chose to go here instead. Interestingly enough, almost immediately after descending only 5-10 vertical feet from the summit toward Devil's Backbone, the wind stopped.

Tagged several times on way back from Baldy via the Backbone. It's a cool summit with a nice view of Fish Fork and the north Baldy trail, but I have preferred to tag this with Baldy always and never as a stand alone hike. Be careful on the steep north facing slope of this mountain.

A great winter snowclimb with Bryan. During the ascent we had to dodge huge potentially fatal ice bombs falling from the trees. On the summits, 45mph winds were whipping up major spindrift. We descended from the Antonio / Harwood saddle in a sudden white out and the slope turned out to be icy and sketchy. I fell twice and had to arrest with my axe. We should have brought crampons.